Law at Uni of York

Barry is speaking facts here.

Another RG uni should be in clearing for law though. Liverpool always are and were even in clearing COVID years for law at BBB.
Sheffield, Cardiff, Newcastle, Southampton could be possible options too.

If you want to change course because you no longer want to do sociology, then York and other good unis will be in clearing for other courses.

Both Sheffield & Cardiff are hugely up on LLB applicants this year. Cardiff are honest & have said they’ve been in clearing before but aren’t sure they will be this year due to the applicant numbers (I’d imagine they’ll take near misses instead). I believe them. Liverpool, yes perhaps but I don’t know their numbers this year.

I think what we’re seeing this year is the tail end of the covid years. There were a lot who got rejected last year with good grades (due to overhang from 20/21 covid years) but didn’t want to compromise on their Uni so took gap years. I believe this is why numbers are still higher than historically, but also perhaps because law generally is competitive & is growing as a favoured subject.

All the OP can do is see, but I wouldn’t recommend hoping on many of the mid tier being in clearing for straight LLB, or at least with v few spaces, maybe the odd dual degree. Of course no one has a crystal ball. Good luck OP, I hope you’ll find something.

Thank you so much for your suggestions.
I actually have an update, I recently found out my college made a mistake with one of my predicted grades, and after informing york of them, they changed my offer to LLB law with criminology.

My question is, is it better to do straight law or a dual degree, I want to (hopefully) do a masters in law in the future, then join a law firm.

If it’s M1L6 it’s a qualifying law degree. This means if you wanted to be a barrister you’d not need to do a conversion course. SQE for solicitor means you no longer need a qualifying law degree anyway BUT many of the prestigious law firms still require you to do some of the GDL units, so have some legal education anyway. Not an issue for you either way as it’s a qualifying degree.

So it’s up to you really. Remember 50% of solicitors don’t have law degrees anyway & choose to do the route I described above albeit it’s recently changed with SQE.

If you desperately want to go to York then go for it.

Agree about the LLM, waste of time & money unless you want to go into academia. Most solicitors with LLMs say they wish they hadn’t bothered. It’s your performance on your professional exams eg SQE & BC that they’ll look at once you have your degree.

If it’s M1L6 it’s a qualifying law degree. This means if you wanted to be a barrister you’d not need to do a conversion course. SQE for solicitor means you no longer need a qualifying law degree anyway BUT many of the prestigious law firms still require you to do some of the GDL units, so have some legal education anyway. Not an issue for you either way as it’s a qualifying degree.

So it’s up to you really. Remember 50% of solicitors don’t have law degrees anyway & choose to do the route I described above albeit it’s recently changed with SQE.

If you desperately want to go to York then go for it.

Agree about the LLM, waste of time & money unless you want to go into academia. Most solicitors with LLMs say they wish they hadn’t bothered. It’s your performance on your professional exams eg SQE & BC that they’ll look at once you have your degree.

As full disclaimer I will say that some places don’t rate sole Criminology degrees as that good and they are up there with some of the degrees where it’s hard to get employment after, BUT as this is a qualifying Law degree from a prestigious Uni like York, I don’t think you could argue there’s an issue. You will find the law part will make up the majority of the degree due to the time needed to cover the mandatory modules to make it qualifying.

The website states that course is a qualifying law degree if you look near the bottom under Accreditation. Tbh I don’t think there’s a hard & fast rule on courses you really need to check as if they’re qualifying it’ll tell you. My understanding was LLB are qualifying, BA or BSc won’t be.